One for Sorrow
by Rosetintstheworld
Summary: What if the floor show went a tad...differently? Frank says a tearful goodbye to his groupie.


**Well, the fanfiction bug has at last bitten me again after several weeks of writer's block. With thanks to Transylvanian Mockingjay, whise latest installment of ****_My Love of a Certain Dope _****got me in such a mood for Frank that I went and churned this out. Enjoy ^^**

The scuffle it had taken to keep him from meeting with the same fate that had taken the life of his groupie had left him with a small gash just above his left brow that dripped a steady trickle of blood down his damp face. Riff Raff had been overpowered, his weapon rendered useless, and he and Magenta hadn't dared move a muscle since Columbia had fallen.

While his master had attacked the mutinous handyman - half in self-preservation and half in rage at the fact Riff had thought he was allowed to destroy what was not rightfully his - Rocky had attempted to cower behind Janet, although while Frank had been unaware, she, her...male and Dr Scott had fled (in spite of the fact that they were partially nude and, in two of three cases, in drag) leaving the perpetually bamboozled Adonis standing looking pathetic and afraid, still in the center of the stage.

"You killed her..." Frank's bloodied, partially made-up glance fell on the offender after he'd spent a while mentally debating whether or not he should comfort Rocky. He'd decided against.  
"Master-"  
"Do I look as if I want to hear any of it?" Frank snarled, trying and failing to take a decent look at Columbia's frighteningly still body, lying face up across the floor. Her eyes were half-shut, her mouth ajar; her limbs spreadeagled with one hand across her face. He had to look in order to accept the reality. But he couldn't. He, Dr Frank N Furter, prince of the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania - shameless destroyer of the hearts of man, woman and whatever else he could find - couldn't bring himself to keep his eyes upon the corpse of the girl he could have sworn to the Lord he didn't give a shit about.

The stillness was what made it so unsettling and strange. She'd been so energetic and fidgety to the point it was almost obscene - even in sleep, she was never unmoving, constantly wriggling and muttering under her breath. But now...not a thing.

He cast Magenta and her groveling brother aside, treading with his legs shaking at the knees towards Columbia. He smeared some of the blood across his cheek with the back of his hand, numb and unflinching to the rest of the world, as if he were momentarily existing within a dream.

He had always been so vile to the child. He'd blown her off more times than he could count. Worse still, he'd insulted and abused her when another caught his attention or he grew sick of her, and he hand't felt even a twinge of guilt as he'd heard her making excuses about the bruises to Magenta the next day. Yet she'd always come straight back when he called, like some kind of unconditionally affectionate puppy covered in sequins. He had viciously murdered her boyfriend - the only individual who had cared a jot about her in the final chapter of her short life - right in front of her eyes, yet she'd still virtually forgiven him for it - or so it seemed to him at least, - even after she'd been tricked into eating said boyfriend.

When she and the servants had come through the hole in the laboratory wall and she had aired her opinions for the first time,. she had spoken nothing but truth to him. But it hadn't been truth he hadn't wanted to hear, and what had he done but turned her to stone and forced her to parade herself in the floor show that had ultimately killed her.

Ultimately, she had died for him. Had she not screamed - deliberately or not - it would be his corpse sprawled on the floor in place of hers. She would still be happy in her bedazzled, hyperactive, tap-dancing existence, and he would be...well, he didn't care to think.

And what exactly had he done to deserve her sacrifice? Fuck all for all he knew. He had no idea. What exactly had she seen in him? Even he - his own single greatest admirer - was struggling to see his redeeming qualities.

He was on his knees now, and after the obligatory closing of her sightless eyes, he found himself clutching her hand in his; he felt ill inclined to do anything more. She deserved better.

She was still sopping wet, only now stone-cold to the touch and completely inanimate. Frank had not cried once since the age of twelve years old, and he prided himself on the fact. But even as he told himself that she mattered nothing to him; that he had Rocky; that he didn't need her; that she was in a far better place - he was beyond any sort of lies he could come up with and force himself to believe as the truth.

For the first time in a very, very long while indeed, on the evening of the absolute whirlwind of a day that had confounded, shocked, amazed, ruined and ended several people, himself included, Frank N. Furter shed a tear. And over one who he'd been sure he had no care for at all in the world.

He knelt on the stone floor, riverlets of tears and eyeliner and blood streaming down his face, shaking and weeping and holding the dead hand of the girl who'd given his life for him.

Murmuring helplessly, he brought his face an inch from hers, though he didn't allow his poisoned lips to touch her. Hos voice was a whisper; barely existing, and inaudible unless you were centimeters away from him.  
"I'm sorry, Collie...I truly am..."


End file.
